The Three Key Elements of Influential Digital Marketing

Ever see a numbered headline like the one above and try to guess what the three things are?

Sometimes it’s easy; sometimes it’s not. In this case, you could be thinking I’m going to talk about content, copy, and email.

And while you’re right that those things are important, that’s not what this article is about.

Content and copy contain the messages you need to get across, and email delivers those messages within a conversion-rich context. But without understanding the fundamental elements of those messages, you won’t create the kind of influence with your target audience that leads to sales.

Instead, they’re trying to avoid the work by reaching the audiences of people who have already put in the work. That continues to put you at the mercy of others when you could instead own the relationship.

Despite the disintermediated nature of the internet, brands are instead turning to a new form of intermediary, or influential middle man. Shortcut marketing rears its ugly head again.

Now, don’t get me wrong — having relevant influencers in your corner is desirable, and often game-changing. That said, your main goal is to first develop direct influence with your prospects, which ironically makes it easier to get outside influencers on your side.

This is the reality of modern marketing in any medium, and it’s especially viable online. And those three key elements that your digital marketing must embrace to develop true influence are aspiration, empowerment, and unity.

1. Aspiration

Effective marketing has always been about identifying and fulfilling aspirations. People strive to improve themselves and their station in life, especially in relation to others in the social strata.

Early mass marketing did a great job of channeling aspiration through envy. Messages encouraging consumers to “keep up with the Joneses” through the accumulation of material goods became the persuasion prompt for elevated social status.

Aspiration remains as powerful as ever, but it’s a different animal now. First of all, we no longer compare ourselves to our geographic neighbors. Instead, we now have worldwide Instagram-fueled expectations based on who we desire to be like based on interests, lifestyles, and various forms of success.

As master marketer Roy H. Williams presciently said:

“Show me what a person admires, and I’ll tell you everything about them that matters. And then you’ll know how to connect with them.”

Paired with that is a pronounced reduction in the desire to accumulate material things. According to a recent Trend Watch report on consumerism, status is shifting away from markers of material wealth — what they have — and moving more toward who they want to become.

This shift is amplified by celebrities and other influential people on social media. Their followers want to be healthier, smarter, creative, connected, and entrepreneurial. If you’re selling material goods, you need to understand how your widget fits into the broader aspirational lifestyle of your target audience.

This alone seems to justify the focus on outside influencer marketing, but it’s really just a way of abdicating your responsibility as the shepherd of your products and services. As Eugene Schwartz famously said decades ago:

“You do not create desire for your product. You take an existing demand in the market, and you channel it into your products.”

The desires and aspirations of your ideal customer are out there — in plain view — thanks to a social medium that publicly identifies who people admire and follow. It’s your job to discover the parameters of that aspiration, and channel it toward your product or service.

2. Empowerment

If you know what a prospect aspires to become, then your product or service and your marketing must empower that person to become a better version of themselves. If you fail across that spectrum, you’ll lose out to a competitor who delivers.

The 20th century was fueled by inadequacy marketing that encouraged material accumulation. Without access to alternative perspectives, people were targeted by marketers with messages that positioned the brand as the hero, promising to save the poor prospect from the anxiety manufactured by the message.

If your neighbor had a new Buick, you were now made to feel lesser in terms of social status. Why not upgrade to a Cadillac and take the lead?

Effective modern marketing flips that approach on its head. Rather than appealing to materialism or base self-interest, people are looking for positive inspiration and pragmatic guidance on how to become their best selves.

Pair that with the fact that the internet in general (and social media in particular) have helped erode trust in traditional institutions, while shifting power to engaging individuals. The appeal of attracting influencers with strong personal brands reflects this trend — people want to be empowered by other people, not faceless corporations.

Why not also put a human face on your own company? Again, what’s going to get an influencer excited about pimping your stuff, if your brand is uninspired to begin with?

In an environment ripe with information and choices, the prospect is in charge. And while they may not look like a hero yet, they’re definitely the protagonist of their own story.

That means they’ll follow and choose to do business with the brand that empowers them to achieve their heroic aspirations. Outside influencers can help, but only as long as you’re also developing direct influence within your market in a meaningful way that establishes that you’re a player.

3. Unity

For decades, smart marketing and sales professionals have worked to incorporate the six fundamentals of influence established by social psychology studies — reciprocity, authority, social proof, liking, commitment and consistency, and scarcity — into their persuasion efforts.

So it was definitely news when Dr. Robert Cialdini, the original definer of those fundamentals, added a seventh — unity.

In reality, it wasn’t that much of a surprise. Books such as 2004’s The Culting of Brands by Douglas Atkin, and Seth Godin’s Tribes from 2008, provided earlier reflections on the power of unity influence. Meanwhile, companies such as Apple and Harley Davidson have used the power of belonging to build brands worth billions.

Smart digital marketers knew what was up, but we simply tried to shoehorn the concept into the existing influence principle of liking. That means people are more readily influenced by people they like and otherwise find attractive.

But unity goes way beyond simple liking. From the prospect’s perspective, it’s more about people like me or even of me.

According to the same Trend Watch report, people now trust people like themselves more than representatives of traditional power centers, and as much as academic or technical experts. To me, that makes unity perhaps the most powerful of the (now) seven fundamental principles of influence.

Take authority. It’s no longer enough to just demonstrate your expertise with content. You need to be the relatable authority that also shares the core values and worldviews of your prospects.

Or consider social proof, which means we look to others for indications of value and how to behave. A Breitbart article may get tens of thousands of social shares, and yet that social proof is meaningless — and actually a negative — to those who do not share the values and worldviews of that crowd.

There are a lot of tribal ways that we unify. Family, neighborhood, city, province, and nationality are obvious. But the more powerful forces of unification from a marketing standpoint are interest, aspiration, and empowerment. You need to lead people with similar aspirations in a way that brings them together even more.

Thanks to the internet, it’s never been easier for anyone to locate like-minded people who share their interests and aspirations. And as Godin pointed out repeatedly in Tribes, they’re also looking for like-minded leaders to provide the empowerment.

Stand for something that matters

It’s impossible to practice empowerment marketing with wishy-washy content and copy. To the contrary, it’s bold positioning, motivating manifestos, and innovative mission statements that inspire people to confidently chase their aspirations. And it’s no coincidence that these are the same sort of messages that spread like wildfire through social media.

Empowering content that matches aspirations and validates worldviews is what those coveted influencers use to build audiences. You must do the same to remain in the game.

Traditional wisdom says to hide behind a carefully crafted brand, powered by safely sanitized messages, in the hope of appealing to everyone. But if a prospect can’t see themselves belonging with your brand, they’ll look — and find — someone who does make them feel like they belong by standing for something that matters to them.

For small business clients, I think that this makes digital marketing far easier. A lot of mom and pop owners are great salespeople. They are very effective at converting people in person, but not so great at doing that same thing online. This post has my wheels turning about ways that we should be approaching small businesses with the concept of giving their customers the digital version of themselves. Thanks, Brian!

I completely agree with you Will. We have a lady with us as salesperson here and she is so good at explaining things and converting, but when it comes to technical things she’ll just go ahead and connect the client with the appropriate person.

Too many marketers focus heavily on pressing pain points and forget to establish contrast. You can remind someone until they are blue in the face of how miserable their life is. Hitting on pain, and suffering, and why they need to buy your product to avoid the pain but people want to experience pleasure, too.

Hit on pain points. Then, empower folks, to tap into their inherent need to be powerful, to feel like they are in control, to feel that they are in charge of their destiny. Influencers can’t empower your readers like you can. Remember that. Because you are connecting, you are helping compassionately and you are the one laying the framework. Influencers can add to social proof and can spread your word on some level but the chief empowerment building stuff falls on your shoulders.

Unity is the one thing that brings us together 😉 Seriously, it is. More than that, if you build a large, loyal tribe by devoting your attention and energy to your followers and meeting their needs…..you become the influencer. You can reach out for help and also help other influential marketers because you become the big dawg in the eyes of your tribe.

Tribes are powerful. Really powerful. If I publish a few in a few hours I will see a slew of retweets and social shares and opens on my lists and some eBooks sales and more traction online. With every post I publish. Although top marketers helped me grow my tribe, it was more about being paying close attention to my tribe and their needs, often on a 1 to 1 basis.

Many forget – in their mad dash to following the influencer marketing herd, or to hop on the influencer marketing bandwagon – that all tribes develop on a 1 to 1 basis. An individual email asking someone if they need help. A retweet. Directing someone to the right eBook or product or service that will help them out.

These intimate bonds grow over time and the tribe grows as you foster more of these strong friendships, 1 to 1. A top marketer cannot show up and take over that process. Again, this is up to you, to build your tribe and to help people, giving them personalized attention. This is how to make an impact. This is how to build unity. This is how to become a well know, inspired, highly-regarded influencer.

I live in my email these days. Even though I guest post and blog comment quite a bit – as you can see 😉 – I am about those 1 to 1 emails, those questions, the answers and services and eBooks I provide, to solve the problems and building my tribe one human being at a time.

If you do this right, YOU will be the influencer in these people’s lives. They will have already bought in. No need to sell them on anything, because they need not an influential marketer to tell them how wonderful you are. You already proved that with your glowing example, putting it into action.

This is great advice and something that I’ve been trying to work on. I know I create good content, but I have to do more to make my visitors feel like they’re part of the family rather than observers. Thanks!

I see them as a progression — first you identify aspiration, then empower like-minded people, which results (hopefully) in a unified community. Unity is the most important ultimately, but it’s hard to get there without the first two stages. Hope this helps.

If you do this right, You will be the influencer in these people’s lives. They will have already bought in. No need to sell them on anything, because they need not an influential marketer to tell them how wonderful you are. You already proved that with your glowing example, putting it into action.